Sedation Dentistry Sydney
Sedation Dentistry (Pain FREE Dentistry) allows you to be sedated just enough to be pain free and unaware of the treatment, as if you were relaxing. That is why it is normally referred to as conscious sedation dentistry. So if you have sensitive teeth, a fear of dentists, have a bad gag reflex, hate needles, or have limited time to spend on dental care at the dentist, Sedation during dentistry procedures can help you.
Whatever the case may be sedation by your dentists can help you be more anxiety free during your dentistry treatment. Your dentist’s ultimate goal is to make your visit to the dentist a relaxing and enjoyable one. Since you are completely comfortable, relaxed, and pain free your sedation dentist can do years of dental treatments in one or two dental visits.
With sedation your dentist can restore sore gums to good dental health, fix a chipped tooth, replace crowns or dentures, whiten yellow or stained teeth, and more. All pain free.
THE WAND Computer Controlled Anesthetic Delivery System
You may have heard about a device known as “The Wand”. The wand is essentially a computer controlled injection. This means that the injection is guaranteed to be slow and therefore more comfortable. Obviously it is possible for the dentist to control the speed himself with a standard injection, but the idea of the wand is to take out the “human error” in the speed of the injection and therefore ensure a reproducible painless injection every time.
The Wand is a useful gadget because it doesn’t look like a traditional syringe, it works really well! Needle phobics love it… it’s a bit slow though, but apart from that, no major disadvantages! If your dentist offers it, cool, if not, many dentists are well able to give painless injections without it – it’s not that widely available.
Here at All Day All Night Dental we utilise this technology for the benefit our Patients.
We want to make sure that your Dental Experience is the most comfortable and pain free one yet.
Laughing Gas ( Nitrous Oxide)
Inhalation sedation, laughing gas, relative analgesia, RA, happy gas, gas, nitrous, nitrous oxide, N2O-O2… this one has more synonyms than any other sedation technique! And deservedly so. Inhalation sedation with nitrous oxide (N2O) and oxygen (O2) has been described as “representing the most nearly ‘ideal’ clinical sedative circumstance”.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) is simply a gas which you can breathe in. It’s colorless, sweet-smelling, and nonirritating.
Valium
In our office, we used diazepam (Valium®) and meperidine (Demerol®) for many years, which are excellent medications for lowering the level of anxiety, for giving a feeling of euphoria that seems to be needed in erasing some of the prior negative conditioning, or, if necessary, bringing about amnesia: forgetting the entire appointment. Recently, oral triazolam (Halcion®) has become very popular with sedation dentists. It also has a high level of safety and wears off more quickly than diazepam, and thus is more convenient for patients.
Sometimes, with very high levels of anxiety, patients, in spite of very adequate levels of sedative, still cannot seem to endure the dental treatment. However, after the appointment, they may not be able to remember the appointment. The treatment then is successful in their mind and this successful experience works for their benefit by reducing their anxiety in subsequent appointments.
Often, patients with memories of traumatic dental care, after a few appointments with sedation, are able to move away from the sedation. With a few successful dental appointments under their belt, the doctor can lower the level of sedation so that they remember the appointments with greater and greater clarity, until they no longer need sedation.
Oral sedation with the proper medications has an excellent safety record. Valium® by itself is extremely safe, even in large doses. Hoffman-LaRoche, the manufacturer of Valium®, has data on file showing patients who have taken up to 2000 milligrams (that would be the equivalent of two full bottles of 10 mg. tablets) in attempts to commit suicide, and no rescue medications or other rescue measures were needed, because vital functions were not adversely affected. Triazolam is of the same drug family, and is also extremely safe. Nevertheless, as a precaution, most dentists using triazolam or diazepam employ monitoring equipment.
General Anesthesia
Nowadays, general anesthesia in adults (being put to sleep) is a treatment of last resort. For most adults, sedation works perfectly acceptably. If sedation fails then GA can be provided. Also, there are exceptional circumstances under which general anesthesia is recommended. But find out more below!
What are General Anesthesia and Deep Sedation?
General anesthesia (GA) is when you are totally unconscious. In this state, you can’t feel any pain, even without local anesthesia. You can’t reliably breathe on your own, so for more complex procedures (such as fillings – these are actually more complex than extractions under GA!) and procedures of longer duration you need to having a “breathing tube” inserted.
Deep sedation is a state of depressed consciousness, where you may lose the ability to breathe independently and you can’t respond to verbal commands. However, you can still feel noxious stimuli like pain, so local anesthesia is necessary.
In contrast, what is usually called “IV sedation” (or, in advertisements, “twilight sleep”) in dentistry is conscious sedation. Conscious sedation is a minimally depressed level of consciousness during which the patient is able to breathe independently and/or respond purposely to verbal command
If you require any more information on Sedation Dentistry Sydney please do not hesitate to contact us.